Pet Sitter Insurance UK: What Pet Owners Should Check

If you are choosing between a private pet sitter and a licensed pet hotel, insurance and licensing are two of the most important practical differences, and the ones most likely to affect you if something goes wrong. This guide compares both options from the pet owner's perspective: what cover each type of provider typically carries, what questions to ask, and which choice suits different situations.

Pet sitter insurance is not a legal requirement in most cases, which surprises a lot of owners. That gap is exactly why it pays to check before you hand over your keys rather than after.

Private Sitter vs Licensed Pet Hotel: Side-by-Side Comparison

Factor	Private Pet Sitter	Licensed Pet Hotel
Local authority licence required?	Only if boarding in their own home (England/Wales). Not uniformly required for home visits or cat boarding in Scotland.	Yes, required to operate legally in England and Wales. Equivalent requirements apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Insurance legally required?	No, except employers' liability if staff are employed.	No statutory requirement, but expected as a condition of licensing and professional operation.
Care, custody and control cover	Variable: some carry it, many do not.	Typically included in commercial premises policies.
Public liability	Variable: check the limit (£1m to £10m is the typical range).	Usually in place and at higher limits given commercial exposure.
Regular inspections	No.	Yes, local authority inspections as a condition of licence.
Cover for unlicensed activity	Many policies explicitly exclude unlicensed home boarding.	Not applicable, licensed operations are the baseline.
Typical cost to owner	£15 to £30 per night (home visit or overnight stay).	£25 to £60+ per night depending on facility, location and room type.
Continuity of care if sitter is ill	At risk: sole operators may have no backup.	Usually covered by staff rotas.
Personalised home environment	Yes, particularly for home visits or stays in your home.	No, shared or individual kennel/cattery environment.

Pros and Cons

Private Pet Sitter

Licensed Pet Hotel or Boarding Kennel

If you are weighing these two options in more detail, our guide on dog sitters versus boarding kennels covers the everyday practicalities alongside the insurance angle.

Cost Comparison

Cost depends heavily on location, duration and the specific services chosen, but the following gives a useful working frame.

Private pet sitters typically charge £15 to £30 per night for an overnight stay in your home, or £12 to £20 per home visit. Home boarding (at the sitter's home) can be slightly cheaper than a licensed facility, but only where the sitter is properly licensed, and as noted above, an unlicensed sitter's insurance may not apply at all.

Licensed pet hotels and kennels typically charge £25 to £60 per night for dogs, with premium or boutique facilities at the higher end. Cattery rates tend to be lower, often £15 to £35 per night. These figures reflect the overhead of a licensed, inspected facility with permanent staffing. For a fuller breakdown, see our UK dog sitter price guide.

Here is the part worth pausing on. From an insurance risk perspective, a private sitter charging £18 a night with no care, custody and control cover is not necessarily cheaper than a licensed kennel at £35 a night, if the former leaves you with no recourse in the event of an incident. The headline nightly rate is only part of the picture.

Entry-level insurance for a sole-trader sitter starts from around £5.41 per month (Protectivity, January 2026). That base figure reflects a minimal policy; a comprehensive policy including care, custody and control, loss of keys and public liability at meaningful limits will cost considerably more. As an owner, the premium the sitter pays matters far less than what the policy actually covers, so always ask for the certificate.

You can find and compare licensed options near you on Tailstays.

What Pet Sitter Insurance Actually Covers

A specialist pet sitter policy bundles several distinct types of cover into one package. Each section protects against different risks, and not every policy includes all of them by default.

Public Liability

Public liability cover pays out if the sitter, or a pet in their care, causes injury to a third party or damages someone else's property. Say your dog pulls free and causes a cyclist to fall. Without this cover, whoever is liable could face a significant personal claim.

Typical public liability limits run from £1 million to £10 million. Protectivity, for example, offers public liability up to £10 million on its pet sitting policies. A £1 million limit sounds large, but personal injury claims can exceed it.

Crucially, if your pet causes an incident while in the sitter's care, public liability on the sitter's policy can mean that legal exposure does not automatically revert to you.

Care, Custody and Control

This is the cover that pet owners most need to understand, and it is the one most likely to be missing from basic or personal liability policies.

Care, custody and control (CCC) covers vet fees, the death of an animal, loss by theft or straying, advertising and reward costs, and in some cases the animal's transit. Protectivity offers per-animal limits of up to £25,000 with a total policy limit of up to £100,000, though these figures vary by the level of cover selected.

Some policies include non-negligent cover, which means the insurer may contribute to vet costs even when no fault can be established on the sitter's part. Not all policies include this, so it is worth asking specifically.

Loss of Keys

If your sitter loses your house keys, the cost of replacing locks, cutting new keys, resetting alarms and calling a locksmith falls on someone. Without loss of keys cover on the sitter's policy, that someone is you. Protectivity includes this with limits of up to £10,000.

Employers' Liability

If a sitter employs anyone to help them (other than close family members), employers' liability insurance is a legal requirement under the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969. This applies across the UK. If a sitter sends a helper to your home or uses an assistant on a walk without telling you, it is worth asking whether this cover is in place.

Optional Covers Worth Knowing About

• Professional indemnity: covers the sitter if incorrect advice, for example about medication dosage, leads to harm. Relevant if your pet has specific medical needs.
• Personal accident cover for the sitter: if the sitter is a sole operator and suffers an injury mid-booking, this cover can fund a replacement, which matters for continuity of care.
• Travel expense reimbursement: some policies cover owners who need to return home early due to an incident involving their pet while in the sitter's care.

What Pet Sitter Insurance Does Not Cover

Standard pet sitter policies typically exclude the following.

Dogs listed under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Prohibited breeds and dogs subject to court orders are not covered under most policies. If you own a breed that is sometimes misidentified near DDA classifications, ask the insurer directly.

Pre-existing medical conditions. If your pet has a known health condition and an incident arises connected to it, claims may be declined.

Non-domestic animals. Reptiles, birds, rabbits and other small animals may not be covered as standard. Always verify if your pet is not a cat or dog. Owners of smaller pets should read our guide on choosing small pet sitters for rabbits and guinea pigs, where cover often works differently.

Walking more than six dogs simultaneously. Many policies cap the number of dogs that can be walked at once. If you own multiple dogs walked together, confirm the sitter's policy covers the full group.

Home boarding without a local authority licence. This is the exclusion most pet owners do not know about. Policies will not cover home boarding activities if the sitter does not hold the required local authority licence.

Vehicle or motor damage during pet transport. If your pet is transported in the sitter's vehicle and an accident occurs, the animal may be covered under the CCC section, but damage to the vehicle itself is not covered under a pet sitter policy.

The Licensing and Insurance Link: Why Both Matter

In England, under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, anyone providing home boarding for dogs from their own home must hold a licence issued by their local authority. Cat home boarding in England is also covered by the 2018 Regulations in most cases. Wales has similar requirements for both dog and cat home boarding under separate legislation.

Scotland does not currently have consistent national licensing for cat home boarding specifically; the position there differs from England and Wales, and cat boarding arrangements in Scotland may not be subject to the same licensing requirement. Dog boarding licensing in Scotland operates under separate Scottish legislation. Northern Ireland also has its own distinct regulatory framework. If you are based in a devolved nation, check local authority requirements directly rather than assuming the England and Wales position applies. Our guide on how to check if a kennel is licensed walks through the verification process step by step.

The link to insurance is direct. Most specialist pet sitter policies explicitly exclude unlicensed home boarding from their cover. A sitter operating without the required licence may simultaneously be breaking the law and carrying insurance that does not apply to what they are doing. If something happened to your pet in that scenario, you would have very limited recourse through their insurer.

Pet sitting in your own home generally does not require a licence under the 2018 Regulations in England, but insurance is still strongly advisable for that activity.

Pet hotels listed on Tailstays are expected to hold appropriate licences for the services they offer, and that regulatory foundation is part of what distinguishes a verified platform listing from an informal private arrangement.

Questions to Ask Any Provider About Their Insurance

Before you confirm a booking with either a private sitter or a pet hotel, run through this checklist.

1. Can you share your certificate of insurance before I confirm the booking?
2. What is your public liability limit?
3. Do you have care, custody and control cover? If so, what is the per-animal limit?
4. Are you covered for the specific service I need (home visits, overnight stays, home boarding at your property)?
5. If you offer home boarding, are you licensed by your local authority?
6. Do you have loss of keys cover in place?
7. If you use any helpers or assistants, do you hold employers' liability insurance?
8. Does your policy cover my breed?
9. What is the claims process if something goes wrong during my booking?

Red Flags That Suggest a Provider May Be Underinsured

• They refuse or hesitate to share a certificate of insurance before booking.
• The certificate only mentions public liability, with no reference to care, custody and control of animals.
• They offer home boarding but cannot produce evidence of a local authority licence.
• The insurance certificate is in a personal name with no business or trading name, suggesting informal personal cover rather than a specialist commercial policy.
• They are evasive about the claims process or do not know who their insurer is.

Verdict: Which Is Right for Your Pet?

A private pet sitter is likely the better choice if:

• Your pet is anxious, unsociable with other animals, or strongly attached to a home routine, particularly if the sitter can stay in your home.
• You have verified the sitter is properly licensed (where required) and holds a comprehensive policy including care, custody and control.
• Budget is a significant factor and you are comfortable with the due diligence involved in vetting an individual provider.
• You need a more flexible or personalised arrangement than a facility can offer.

A licensed pet hotel is likely the better choice if:

• You want the assurance of a regulated, inspected facility where the licensing and insurance frameworks are already in place.
• Your pet is sociable and does well in a kennel or cattery environment.
• You are travelling for an extended period and need continuity of care that does not depend on a single person's availability.
• You are not comfortable carrying out detailed insurance and licensing checks on an individual, and prefer a provider where that baseline is already established.
• You want to compare multiple verified options easily before booking.

My honest take: for most owners, the deciding factor is not the nightly price but how much verification you are willing to do yourself. A great private sitter can match any facility, but you have to do the legwork to confirm it. A licensed hotel does that legwork for you.

Browse licensed pet hotels near you on Tailstays. The directory currently lists over 2,700 verified providers across the UK, with strong coverage in cities including London, Leeds, York and Bristol.